Fleur Cowles

Speaker 40:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 40:05

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1983.

Speaker 40:11

And the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:31

On our desert island this week is the author, painter, editor, and traveller Fleur Coles.

Presenter0:38

Fleur, how well could you endure isolation and loneliness?

Fleur Cowles0:42

There's no way I could possibly survive. No way, because I hate being alone.

Presenter0:47

Would music be anything of a consolation?

Fleur Cowles0:50

Music would have to be there, because it's a companion I would have in another life. So it would have to be there.

Presenter0:56

Music is important in your life.

Fleur Cowles0:57

Barry.

Presenter0:58

Have you any musical skill yourself?

Fleur Cowles1:01

No, I just have a memory of a very, very, very poor piano playing, which as I hate doing anything badly, I promptly gave up.

Presenter1:09

Do you have a lot of discs?

Fleur Cowles1:11

Masses. Masses.

Presenter1:14

Now you have just eight in this little parcel you're taking ashore. What's the first one?

Fleur Cowles1:19

I'd like very much to hear Gina Bachauer play Mazorski's Paintings for an Exhibition.

Fleur Cowles1:25

Gina Bachauer was someone I greatly, greatly, greatly loved.

Fleur Cowles1:30

She was considered in her time and unfortunately she's no longer alive one of the world's greatest living pianists.

Fleur Cowles1:37

She played the piano beautifully and we became very, very close friends, and after each of her concert tours she made way.

Fleur Cowles1:45

very, very clearly, sharply and immediately to our house in Sussex for a weekend.

Fleur Cowles1:51

where we were regaled by her incredible stories of disaster which always befell her.

Fleur Cowles1:56

and which were always very funny.

Fleur Cowles1:59

Hysterically funny.

Fleur Cowles2:00

And eventually she began to do something which is very dear to many of our friends. She began to play concerts in our barn.

Fleur Cowles2:09

And she chose Mazorski's paintings in an exhibition as a kind of tribute to me, because, as you know, I also paint.

Fleur Cowles2:16

And I would want the record because

Fleur Cowles2:20

It would bring humor to my island, because I would remember years and years and years of storytelling.

Presenter3:19

Gina Brachau are playing two items from Musorsky's Pictures from an exhibition.

Presenter3:25

promenade and then tuitery.

Presenter3:27

Fleur, you're American. Whereabouts in the States were you born?

Fleur Cowles3:31

Boston.

Fleur Cowles3:32

Very close to England in spirit.

Fleur Cowles3:34

Which makes me happy here.

Presenter3:36

Were you educated there?

Fleur Cowles3:37

Well, what education I had was there, yes.

Presenter3:41

As a youngster, what did you want to be?

Fleur Cowles3:43

A writer.

Presenter3:44

When did that start and how, and why?

Fleur Cowles3:46

Well, I think I was terribly young when I began to write secretly every day, trying to recall some incident that affected my sight and mind the day before. It might be that I'd observed the way a butterfly has different colored wings on the inside and out, or the way a flower grew, mainly things of nature. But I wrote them, short, to the point they became part of my memory, and I did that secretly, never telling anyone.

Fleur Cowles4:14

Until I was old enough to begin to read serious literature myself, and then I began to form ideas about how I would like to write seriously.

Presenter4:23

Was there anyone in the family to guide you or help you, point you in the right direction?

Fleur Cowles4:27

In fact, not. It was a serious little secret of mine.

Presenter4:31

How did you start to sell your writing?

Fleur Cowles4:34

Well, I began, as in so many aspects of my life, in a very unorthodox fashion. I wanted so much to be a columnist.

Fleur Cowles4:43

I was then very, very young, hoping to give the impression that I was very, very old.

Fleur Cowles4:49

And I went to the leading newspaper editor in New York City at that time, a man called Lee Woods, a completely classic figure of the great, harsh, wonderfully tough newspaper editor.

Fleur Cowles5:01

And brought with him some columns I'd written

Fleur Cowles5:04

which I hoped he would believe had run in a paper somewhere.

Presenter5:08

They were printed.

Fleur Cowles5:09

They were printed. I got a friend who had a little printing establishment to do them secretly for me.

Fleur Cowles5:15

He bought this, I thought, and I was hired.

Fleur Cowles5:20

Months later he told me that I never fooled him for a moment, but that he thought that audacity might pay off in in the columns, and I became a columnist with a daily signed column every day in one of New York's most important papers.

Presenter5:32

Which paper was it?

Fleur Cowles5:33

The World Telegram.

Presenter5:35

And what was your column? Was it political, social?

Fleur Cowles5:39

No, it wasn't that important, and certainly it wasn't gossip. It was about.

Presenter5:39

No, it was

Fleur Cowles5:44

events and things that were happening and not very serious, not social, but it would be a semi-business, semi-talent, someone who created something, a new bit of invention.

Fleur Cowles5:58

And he left it to me, and somehow I found the material.

Presenter6:02

Had you got a lot of nerve? Could you crash in to try and see important people that you had no introduction to?

Fleur Cowles6:09

Well, I've never used or thought about the word crash. I found a way to be allowed in

Fleur Cowles6:15

Pleasantly, I somehow managed to find somebody who knew the person I wanted. I never crashed. I don't want to be crashed in on. I don't crash in on other people. No, no, I was just great luck.

Presenter6:20

Yeah.

Presenter6:26

Well, there you were started, and started in quite a big way. So let's pause here for your second record.

Fleur Cowles6:32

Well, my second record I've chosen because of the great, great love I had for a very special person who died recently, Princess Grace.

Fleur Cowles6:41

I felt like a sister to her and I think in fact she thought of me as one. And her death was absolutely heartbreaking to me. In fact, when I went to the private family mass the day before the public funeral, I was so overcome that I walked out and fell down a flight of stairs and I'm still walking, as you know, with a crutch. So her death has been a serious, serious event to me.

Fleur Cowles7:05

But the reason why I'd like to hear something by her, it relates to an anecdote which we shared.

Fleur Cowles7:12

I have a home in Spain.

Fleur Cowles7:14

And in the village where I restored this ninth century castle.

Fleur Cowles7:19

I put much of the village to work, and among those I found and could help me were nuns in a tiny convent which I more or less adopted, and they did all my embroidering for me of fabrics and linens and all the things women know they need in house.

Fleur Cowles7:35

They worked behind a sequestered panel because this was a content that didn't allow them to appear.

Fleur Cowles7:42

And over the years, we got to know each other so well and with so much affection that they

Fleur Cowles7:48

once asked the Mother Superior if they could sing for me.

Fleur Cowles7:52

and eventually she gave them the nod, and one wonderful older nun would take up a baton and lead them. Another one had a guitar, and they mainly played village songs and sometimes danced to them, and then ended with something fairly religious.

Fleur Cowles8:09

And when Princess Grace came to stay one time and by the way, she came often enough that I had a room which was hers,

Fleur Cowles8:16

I brought it to the convent one day.

Fleur Cowles8:18

and persuaded them to sing for her.

Fleur Cowles8:21

And then I looked at Grace and said, And now will you sing for them? And she sang True Love, and neither the nuns nor I will ever forget that. There were tears in their eyes, and mine, when I think about it, it was very moving and very beautiful.

Presenter8:35

Well here she is singing True Love with Bing Crosby.

Presenter9:09

True love from high society

Presenter9:12

Now from newspaper work you went into advertising.

Fleur Cowles9:15

Yeah.

Presenter9:15

You went in on a pretty high level.

Fleur Cowles9:18

Yes, I did. It was to create my own agency.

Presenter9:22

Now, the United States entered the war and you began to write a different form of advertising copy. You you wrote speeches.

Fleur Cowles9:29

Yes, I went to Washington and wrote speeches for WPA and the commissions that were dealing with saving goods from being wasted and so on. And my reputation

Fleur Cowles9:43

became sufficient that

Fleur Cowles9:45

when mister Truman became president.

Fleur Cowles9:48

his closest friend, with whom I had worked a great deal in the cabinet.

Fleur Cowles9:52

suggested that he hire me.

Fleur Cowles9:55

for the Famine Emergency Committee.

Fleur Cowles9:58

whose job it was to prepare America to help the rest of the world when the war was over.

Fleur Cowles10:04

And this, in fact, I did for quite a long time. In fact,

Fleur Cowles10:09

I followed the troops into Paris after B E Day. How did you manage that?

Fleur Cowles10:14

It wasn't easy.

Presenter10:15

It wasn't easy.

Fleur Cowles10:16

Well, I had a lot of help from the government to get to Europe, and then I was very very much on my own and somehow persuaded the Air Force, the Army and other people in high places to let me go along.

Presenter10:26

Based on to let

Fleur Cowles10:28

And I did follow them into Paris, into miserable hungry

Fleur Cowles10:33

Dark, unhappy Paris

Fleur Cowles10:35

which was a marvelous experience. I later came to London and saw what had happened there.

Fleur Cowles10:41

But when I got back to the United States, I did a nationwide broadcast to explain what I'd seen and to try to persuade people.

Fleur Cowles10:49

to remember those who were hungry.

Fleur Cowles10:51

And if I could stir up the nation enough that they would get at the growers, we would have the wheat and the huge supplies we wanted, and we did.

Presenter11:00

Record number three.

Fleur Cowles11:02

Well, I'd very much like to hear some music which must be very familiar to the British audiences because it was composed for a film, a nature film, called The Flight of the Condor.

Fleur Cowles11:14

which ran not very long ago and which has won just about every award for nature films.

Fleur Cowles11:20

And I, of course, watch this film because I'm international trusting world wildlife and anything to do with nature does get my eye and ear.

Fleur Cowles11:28

But the reason why I chose the flight of the condor is that it reminded me of a stage in my youth when I was so anxious to fly myself like a bird, like that condor.

Fleur Cowles11:42

that I had to be kept away from cliffsides, because I felt for certain I could take off.

Presenter11:47

Oh dear

Fleur Cowles11:48

And you know the flying Yorkshire man did.

Fleur Cowles11:51

So, I mean, that urge to be in the air never left me, and eventually I became a pilot.

Fleur Cowles11:59

I do love the air, I do fly, and therefore the image of that beautiful bird flying was very, very moving and telling to me.

Presenter13:02

Some music from the soundtrack of the television series The Flight of the Condor, that particular theme, was used in the programmes On the Amazon River.

Presenter13:12

Now, Fleur, you moved into publishing.

Presenter13:15

In fact, you married a man who published a magazine called Look. It was a weekly, wasn't it?

Fleur Cowles13:20

We always talked about our weekly, but it was a semi-monthly.

Fleur Cowles13:24

Yes, I

Fleur Cowles13:26

Marry the boss, as they say.

Presenter13:27

I remember it as a as a fairly sensational publication.

Fleur Cowles13:31

Well, that's because you have a long, long memory because after I arrived it became much less so and less and less and less so. That was my job really. You changed it.

Presenter13:39

Yeah, that was

Presenter13:41

You changed it.

Fleur Cowles13:42

to make it into a family magazine rather than a barber shop special.

Presenter13:46

Yes, you became a woman's editor.

Fleur Cowles13:48

Well, I was associate editor and looked after women's interests, of course.

Presenter13:52

And you even got in art pages eventually, I believe.

Fleur Cowles13:55

I got an art and I did something else which was a slight forerunner in publishing.

Fleur Cowles14:01

I persuaded people to write about food so that even men would be interested, because the one thing I didn't want to do was to create a magazine that lost a male reader.

Presenter14:12

What did all these changes do to the circulation?

Fleur Cowles14:15

Well, pretty astronomic things. Whilst I was still there, the circulation went from a million to about five.

Fleur Cowles14:23

And after I left, showing how little they really needed me by then, it went to seven.

Presenter14:29

Well, on the strength of all that circulation, all that money coming in, you began a magazine of your own, a personal sort of magazine, a rather special sort of magazine.

Fleur Cowles14:39

Yes, Roy, that one was called Flare.

Fleur Cowles14:43

which many people still confuse with fleur, I'm happy to say. Fleur is Flare and Fleur is Fleur.

Fleur Cowles14:49

It was magsing of the arts.

Fleur Cowles14:51

Nothing like it had ever been seen before.

Fleur Cowles14:54

It included all the arts in one issue instead of being divided up as normally with separate magazines for each type of editorial section.

Fleur Cowles15:04

Yeah.

Fleur Cowles15:05

Broke a lot of brown because we didn't use one kind of paper.

Fleur Cowles15:10

I used many kinds of paper. I bound a book into each issue.

Fleur Cowles15:14

We use five different production techniques.

Fleur Cowles15:18

Every magazine, I hope, in any case is how I designed it.

Fleur Cowles15:24

It would not be just to read, but to look at as well. That's the editor's wish in reverse, because the average editor would rather

Fleur Cowles15:32

not be looked at, but would rather be read.

Fleur Cowles15:34

But I wanted this to be physically so very beautiful and exciting that it wouldn't be read and it wouldn't be passed over and apparently achieved that marvelous fame.

Presenter15:44

How many issues appeared?

Fleur Cowles15:46

13.

Presenter15:47

That's all.

Fleur Cowles15:47

That's all.

Presenter15:48

And those thirteen are now, of course, collectors' items all over the world.

Fleur Cowles15:53

Well, yes, they are. I'm one of those who's trying to collect them myself, because I'd rather run out of copies.

Presenter15:58

This was a question of economics that it it had.

Fleur Cowles16:01

Oh, absolutely. First of all, it got no support at all from the advertiser.

Fleur Cowles16:06

And no magazine can live without it. Secondly, they thought it was my toy.

Fleur Cowles16:12

Because no one could afford to do it otherwise.

Fleur Cowles16:15

Third, the competition got together and really did a mafia job on it.

Fleur Cowles16:21

Fourth, and this is quite important and assuages my mind too.

Fleur Cowles16:25

The Berlin airlift was about to begin.

Fleur Cowles16:29

And I really thought this was the wrong thing to be doing. What I really should be doing was rushing over to Europe and driving an ambulance for the war that we thought was about to happen. I closed it sadly, but feeling that it was the right time.

Presenter16:43

What's your next record?

Fleur Cowles16:45

Well, I'd like to tell you, as a matter of fact, about an experience I had in Seattle in Washington on the west coast of the United States.

Fleur Cowles16:54

And it brings a record to mine called The Carnival of Animals.

Fleur Cowles16:58

The conductor of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra came to London one day this must be about seven years ago

Fleur Cowles17:05

I had never met him before, and I was delighted to meet him. He was brought by Gina Bachauer.

Fleur Cowles17:10

and he fell in love with my paintings, which were stacked around my office at that time, getting ready to be forwarded to an exhibition.

Fleur Cowles17:19

And he went back to Seattle without being able to forget the memory of those pictures.

Fleur Cowles17:25

Very, very flattering and marvelous that was.

Fleur Cowles17:28

And he finally persuaded me to bring them to Seattle, where they opened the Seattle Symphony season with a concert dedicated to my paintings.

Fleur Cowles17:39

They chose only music which dealt with animals and flowers, which I painted.

Fleur Cowles17:43

The opera house was hung with my paintings, which later went to the Seattle Art Museum for exhibition, and when that night I found myself the guest of honor with a concert dedicated to me and my work,

Fleur Cowles17:57

Tears fell, and I will never forget it, and I do not want ever to forget it, and so I do indeed have to have the carnival of animals.

Presenter19:03

Cyril Smith and Phyllis Sellick, playing the opening of Carnival of the Animals by Saint Sans. Now getting back to Flair days,

Presenter19:13

You were at that time getting about the place a great deal. I mean, immediately after that. A very influential lady. You covered the McCarthy trials. You were correspondent with the United States forces in Korea.

Presenter19:27

And to top the lot, you were President Eisenhower's personal ambassador to this country for Her Majesty's coronation. Now that was a a singular honor.

Fleur Cowles19:36

Well, it was m one of the happiest occasions of my life, of course.

Fleur Cowles19:41

I'll never forget that. I'll never

Fleur Cowles19:43

Also forget how

Fleur Cowles19:46

I was the American ambassador, but General George Marshall was President Eisenhower's personal representative, so he was there.

Fleur Cowles19:55

I'll never forget sitting in the Abbey.

Fleur Cowles19:58

Watching Churchill

Fleur Cowles20:01

wander slowly down the aisle with his great robes around him.

Fleur Cowles20:05

looking neither to the left nor the right, but suddenly spotting Marshall and stepping out to welcome him.

Fleur Cowles20:12

It was very moving because these two men were dear, dear, close friends.

Fleur Cowles20:16

And even at that august occasion he couldn't deny that emotion and went to speak to him, stepped out of line. I'll never forget that.

Fleur Cowles20:24

I'll never forget the night after the coronation, that first night, and the Great Bull at Buckingham Palace and all the things that happened there.

Presenter20:34

While you were on these official junkets overseas, were you allowed to file stories? Could you do journalistic work?

Fleur Cowles20:41

Never. Uh it wasn't my intention to do it and of course it wouldn't have been proper and of course I never did.

Fleur Cowles20:48

And also, I want to say that I wasn't filing from Korea either. In a moment of weakness,

Fleur Cowles20:55

and slight banter, during the war I said to President Eisenhower,

Fleur Cowles21:00

Wouldn't it be nice if I went up to the war front?

Fleur Cowles21:03

And he said, Well, that you can do, and he arranged for it.

Fleur Cowles21:06

And I was full of elation and uh gratitude until I got to

Fleur Cowles21:11

Tokyo, where the then general

Fleur Cowles21:14

in command of the troops and of Tokyo, told me I had to spend a day being briefed by intelligence, told what to do when and if captured.

Fleur Cowles21:25

told how to behave once I got there.

Fleur Cowles21:28

Fitted into five layers of battle dress because it was twenty below zero.

Fleur Cowles21:33

strapped into a rickety, horrible plane flying over the high, high mountains of Korea to get there. And all I could think of was, why am I here? This wasn't even essential. Of course, I'm now glad I went. It was a marvelous experience.

Fleur Cowles21:48

And I came there. I mean, luck is on my side through life because when did I get there? Just before the truce.

Fleur Cowles21:56

And of course I stayed long enough to attend the truce conferences at Panmunjong and to see this historic act being signed.

Fleur Cowles22:05

And it it was pretty terrifying and it's something I might not have begged for as earnestly as I did if I'd known what would uh happen, but I'd been there and I went and I was in a war front and I nearly got shot and I nearly got killed and all this very exciting in retrospect.

Presenter22:22

Back to music. We've got to record number five.

Fleur Cowles22:26

Well, I'm so fond of my home in Spain, and I'd have to have something that would bring Spain to that remote island.

Fleur Cowles22:33

And Segobia is a man who could do it.

Presenter23:37

Segovia playing

Presenter23:39

Spanish dance number five in E minor.

Presenter23:42

sometimes called Andaluthia by Granados.

Presenter23:47

Claire, you've written books on very diverse subjects. You've written some books of reminiscences, and also a book on Salvador Dali.

Fleur Cowles23:56

Well, this was the so called authorized biography of this madman, because he did in fact ask me to write it. I knew him so well, I thought, that of course I could do it.

Fleur Cowles24:08

And then when I began to investigate the stories,

Fleur Cowles24:12

I realized that it couldn't be done lightly.

Fleur Cowles24:15

I went to Spain, I went to France, I went everywhere Dolly had spent any time.

Fleur Cowles24:21

to find out if these incredibly revolting, strange, sometimes murderous stories of his were true, because I could not print them otherwise, and it was pretty obvious that he was just making them up.

Fleur Cowles24:34

But to my horror, I discovered that they were all true, and those were in my book.

Presenter24:41

Well, talking about Daly's paintings should bring us to yours. You decided-

Presenter24:46

What was it, about fifteen years ago, that you were going to be a professional painter and you were going to spend so many days a week on painting and nothing else.

Fleur Cowles24:54

That is right.

Presenter24:55

Was it fairly easy to adjust your life to that?

Fleur Cowles24:58

Well, all my life in a way I wanted to paint, although when I was really young I never s saw the possibility of painting and writing and writing one out in that contest.

Fleur Cowles25:11

But later, when I was an editor and longed so much to paint,

Fleur Cowles25:17

I realized that it took a great deal of talent to pass my own scrutiny.

Fleur Cowles25:22

And I never tried it.

Fleur Cowles25:24

When I came to live in England I realized that vanity was pretty stupid.

Fleur Cowles25:29

And I lost my vanity and began to paint, realizing that it really didn't matter how.

Fleur Cowles25:35

And that's how I began.

Presenter25:36

And you've continued very successful. You've had a a large number of one-man shows.

Fleur Cowles25:42

Yeah.

Presenter25:42

in a number of countries.

Fleur Cowles25:43

I've had thirty-four one-man shows and um I've also had five in museums which are the thing of course for which all painters strive.

Presenter25:51

And books of reproductions have been published.

Fleur Cowles25:53

Yes.

Presenter25:55

You never paint directly from life, do you?

Fleur Cowles25:58

I couldn't do that. I cannot paint anything I see. There's just no way. If I if I were to be given a commission to paint a bowl of flowers, there's no way I could do it.

Fleur Cowles26:08

Because I'm I must sit down with this board in my lap and as you know I paint on board and in my lap, no easel, nothing.

Fleur Cowles26:17

and with my guests around me.

Fleur Cowles26:19

I must not know what I'm going to paint.

Fleur Cowles26:22

I must not know.

Fleur Cowles26:24

'Cause there'd be no fun in it. I'd just sit there and begin.

Presenter26:27

While you're talking to people.

Fleur Cowles26:28

Oh, yes, saving the world, ordering the menus, directing traffic, whatever, and painting. And these things materialize. They just come out. They're there parked away in my mind. And there they are. They just produce themselves.

Presenter26:43

Yeah.

Fleur Cowles26:43

I know how animals sit and walk and look and talk and

Presenter26:43

But I know

Presenter26:47

And your flower paintings. You must have studied flowers in tremendous detail. They look so real.

Fleur Cowles26:53

Well, I'm surrounded by flowers. They're part of my life. So I've always been aware of them and keen about them and looked at them and cared for them.

Fleur Cowles27:02

But I did one thing when I began to paint, which was a great help to me.

Fleur Cowles27:08

I knew that I couldn't paint from the the sight of something before me, yet I didn't want to paint accurately.

Fleur Cowles27:14

I began by taking a daisy, which is a flower I simply adore.

Fleur Cowles27:19

and examined it in between the two fingers of my left hand, thumb and forefinger.

Fleur Cowles27:26

turned it around, watched it carefully, looked underneath the flower, how it joined the stem, all that, what the leaves were like and how they curled and how many points and so on.

Fleur Cowles27:37

absorbed the daisy, just until I had actually absorbed it. It was there in my mind.

Fleur Cowles27:44

The next day would pick up the empty hand and paint that daisy.

Fleur Cowles27:49

And I did that with many, many flowers until I got to the point where I

Fleur Cowles27:53

I didn't care whether they were real or not. I very often paint shapes which look like flowers.

Presenter27:59

You've just published a book about flowers.

Fleur Cowles28:01

Well, it's my pride and joy about I wrote, as a matter of fact, because flowers are something that obsessed my mind. I never stopped thinking about them.

Presenter28:02

That's right.

Fleur Cowles28:11

I wrote to a hundred and eighty seven friends around the world.

Fleur Cowles28:14

to ask them, and this will amuse you.

Fleur Cowles28:18

if they were to be banished to a desert island, a Roy Plumley, or otherwise.

Fleur Cowles28:23

and anything they loved would grow there, regardless of season or soil.

Fleur Cowles28:27

What ten flowers would they simply have to take?

Fleur Cowles28:31

And one hundred and eighty seven people responded, and from their replies I painted the ten flowers that most of the world loved best.

Fleur Cowles28:40

And uh it became a book.

Fleur Cowles28:44

It's called a plower game, right?

Presenter28:46

We've got to record number six.

Fleur Cowles28:49

I like to go back to Brazil for a minute or two because I spent a lot of my life there. In fact, Brazil was one of the places to which President Eisenhower sent me. And so I'd have to keep Brazil in my life.

Fleur Cowles29:02

And to do that, I'm going to suggest a piece of music that almost everyone else on earth must know and love, which is a song written by Jobine.

Fleur Cowles29:12

And it's called Iponema.

Fleur Cowles29:15

It would evoke that place called Ipanima, where I very often have stayed.

Speaker 329:20

Tall and ten and young and lovely, the girl from Ibanima goes walking and when she passes, each one she passes goes

Speaker 329:34

Uh

Speaker 329:35

When she walks she's like a sombre that swings so cool and sways so gently That when she passes each one she passes goes

Presenter29:49

The girl from Ipanema

Presenter29:51

Stan Goetz and Astrid Gilberto.

Presenter29:55

We've established that you paint three days a week. Now how do you plan the rest of your time? Because you have three homes to keep up. You you have a London home, a Sussex home, a castle in Spain.

Fleur Cowles30:06

Yes. I plan it by being tied to my desk four days a week.

Presenter30:10

The non-painting days.

Fleur Cowles30:11

The non-painting days, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I paint on weekends.

Fleur Cowles30:16

I think I have got a chain which just links me to that desk because I do sit at it and work very hard at it four days a week and for very long hours.

Fleur Cowles30:25

How do I do this? Uh I think by

Fleur Cowles30:29

Having learned through years of variety of responsibilities to be efficient, to be disciplined.

Fleur Cowles30:36

never to put things off, to do them.

Presenter30:38

You do a great deal of entertaining in in a most accomplished and effortless manner. You have a huge correspondence.

Fleur Cowles30:45

Yeah.

Fleur Cowles30:46

I sometimes have a mail bag left at the door.

Presenter30:50

And you do this huge amount of travelling.

Presenter30:52

A familiar figure at most airports.

Fleur Cowles30:54

I'm afraid so.

Presenter30:56

Well, you look very well on it. Let's have record number seven.

Fleur Cowles31:00

I'd have to have opera with me on my island because it's a habit of going to the opera with

Fleur Cowles31:07

is a part of my life.

Fleur Cowles31:09

And I would probably choose a record of a very recent opera to which I went.

Fleur Cowles31:16

and which I I love so much I'd like to take the memory of to the island.

Fleur Cowles31:20

It was Manalesco which was sung by that ravishingly beautiful Kiritate, Koana.

Fleur Cowles31:27

And uh the

Fleur Cowles31:28

Incredibly handsome and gifted Placido Domingo.

Fleur Cowles31:33

On my island.

Fleur Cowles31:35

Even if it weren't those two singing and playing.

Fleur Cowles31:39

The music would evoke those two, and I would like to keep that memory alive for a very long time.

Presenter31:45

Well, we can give you the handsome and slim domingo, but we can't give you Kirita Kanawa who hasn't recorded it. So here is Montserrat Kabaye.

Presenter32:52

The closing duet from Fuccini's Manon Lesco, sung by Montserrat Caballe.

Presenter32:58

and Placido Domingo.

Presenter33:00

Fleur, how good a castaway would you be? I mean, you're a very efficient lady. Could you look after yourself on a desert island? Could you turn the natural resources to your advantage?

Fleur Cowles33:10

In no way.

Presenter33:11

Yeah.

Fleur Cowles33:11

I'm just not very adept with my hands.

Fleur Cowles33:14

I can paint and I can write and I can do the things which have to do with minute detail.

Fleur Cowles33:20

But the largest structure, the business of living protected and well under the stars, I could never do.

Presenter33:27

What about food? Ever done any fishing?

Fleur Cowles33:30

No, no, but uh I love fish and I might somehow get over the horror of catching it and eat it.

Presenter33:35

And you enjoy cooking?

Fleur Cowles33:37

I love cooking.

Presenter33:39

Would you try to escape?

Fleur Cowles33:40

Absolutely not. There's no way that I could possibly manufacture a means of escape.

Fleur Cowles33:46

I would be stuck on my island.

Presenter33:48

Right.

Presenter33:49

And what's the last record you'd play while you're there?

Fleur Cowles33:52

You know, this is in essence what we're talking about, is a musical autobiography, and I have to include something that I would in fact be writing about if this were in written form.

Fleur Cowles34:04

And that was a night that I spent at the Vatican in Rome.

Fleur Cowles34:07

I'd been invited to attend a concert there, which was conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Fleur Cowles34:13

a remarkable concert in which the entire program was left to Bernstein to create.

Fleur Cowles34:20

and in which very eclectic, very interesting, very original concert, he brought over fifty of the Yale choir, handsome young men in their tails,

Fleur Cowles34:34

and 50 little black boys aged 10 and 11 from the toughest city in the United States called Newark, New Jersey.

Fleur Cowles34:44

and they were an essential ingredient in this concert.

Fleur Cowles34:48

And the thing that was the most striking of all, the most memorable, was Bernstein conducting the Chichester Psalms.

Fleur Cowles34:57

which he did for the Chichester Musical Festival, which is run in Sussex every year.

Fleur Cowles35:03

and is called a tribute to the Chichester Festival.

Fleur Cowles35:07

And in that music

Fleur Cowles35:09

that episode.

Fleur Cowles35:11

Fifty little black boys from Newark, New Jersey sang in Hebrew.

Fleur Cowles35:17

Very, very interesting and a lovable, marvelous sight. But the thing which makes the event so memorable, apart from the physical attributes of being in the Vatican, in this immense, beautiful place with music resounding,

Fleur Cowles35:32

was the fact that the Pope, who was seated in his throne just before the podium when the concert was over, raised his arms to the sky.

Fleur Cowles35:42

and said, mister Bernstein, may I thank you for making my church into a United Nations.

Presenter36:49

An excerpt from Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms for chorus and orchestra on that recording by the New York Philharmonic and the Camarata Singers.

Presenter36:59

If you could take just one of the discs you played us, which would it be?

Fleur Cowles37:03

I think it would have to be Gina Bachauer because of the personal attachment. I wouldn't feel lonely because that great big marvelous human being would be there in spirit.

Presenter37:14

Pictures from an exhibition. Yes. And one luxury to take to the island, one object that would give you pleasure to possess and have there, but of no practical use.

Fleur Cowles37:24

I don't know how you'll accept this or how you'll define it, but for me the greatest luxury on earth would be a box of paints.

Presenter37:31

That's all right, and you can have some board to paint on as well.

Fleur Cowles37:33

Well, that's fine. I'd be very happy.

Presenter37:35

Business as usual.

Presenter37:37

and one book apart from the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, which are already provided.

Fleur Cowles37:42

Well, if permissible, I would say that I would not take a book. I would take some blank paper and write one instead.

Presenter37:49

All right, write your own book. And thank you, Fleur Coles, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Fleur Cowles37:55

You've made the desert island very attractive. Thank you.

Presenter37:58

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 438:24

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio forward.